


Shipbreaker Bay

by Slytherin_Princess_Nysa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Daenerys Targaryen Deserves Better, Depressed Gendry, F/M, Gendrya - Freeform, Missing in Action, POV Davos Seaworth, Post Season 8, Queen Daenerys, Queen Sansa, and if I have to live with it, fuck David and Dan, so do all of you, so would I, this was born from bitterness and sadness, you wanna know why I did this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 12:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20621210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa/pseuds/Slytherin_Princess_Nysa
Summary: “Lad,” Davos started from his place by the door. Gendry was staring out of his solar window again, watching the waves crash over the jagged rocks below Storm’s End.“Don’t,” Gendry whispered, tired, his shoulders slumped and Davos couldn’t see his face but he knew his eyes were sullen. “Don’t say it. I can’t hear it, not from you.”





	Shipbreaker Bay

[Post on my Instagram that inspired this heartbreak](https://www.instagram.com/p/B0WeybCnnGS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)

* * *

Davos walked down the hall, reading the parchment in his hands for the third time since waking in the guest quarters to a worried Maester at his door. It was one letter of dozens that had arrived with updates for Gendry from the Queen. Gendry had read the first letters with hope shining in his eyes, but as each letter came with less good news and more gentle urging from the Queen to accept the death of Lady Arya, the hope had died. The letters no longer came to Gendry directly anymore, he couldn’t handle it. Davos had arranged for the letters to be brought to him after Gendry had tossed two of them in the fire without breaking the seal.

> _Lord Gendry of House Baratheon,_
> 
> _ I hope this letter finds you well and I hope you find time in your busy schedule as a new Lord to visit King’s Landing, the city has recovered wonderfully since the Dowager Queen Cersei burned it with wildfire in the war. _
> 
> _ I believe we have become close since we found each other in Winterfell, I have shared with you my worries of winning over the Westerosi Lords and you shared with me your love of our She-Wolf Hero. I am afraid that I write to you with a heavy heart. _
> 
> _ I regret to inform you that I have received terrible news from Queen Yara and King Daario of Meereen. As you know, the Ironborn have been searching for Lady Arya since her vessel disappeared and my contacts in Essos have been looking for news of your beloved. It is with great sadness that I tell you what they found in their search. _
> 
> _ The great direwolf figurehead and several other notable bobbles from her ship were found in the markets of Asshai, King Daario purchased the figurehead and has sent it on his fastest ship. Hopefully, it will be in King’s Landing in a few weeks time. I will be sending it to Queen Sansa and Lord Bran in Winterfell, I believe Lady Arya would want it that way. _
> 
> _ We have not found the rest of her ship or the bodies of Lady Arya and her crew yet. I doubt we ever will as the oceans have claimed them in their depths. _
> 
> _ I wish I had better news to offer you, cousin. I send you my affections and ask that you inform me if you or the Stormlands are in need of anything. _
> 
> _Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen._

Davos didn’t have to look to know where he was going, he remembered the hallways from his time with Stannis, but he had made Storm’s End his home for Gendry. He saw the lad as his own son and Marya had taken a liking to him as well. Davos thought that it made the cold halls feel more at home, like a family.

He knocked on the door with his knuckles rasping against the wood roughly. There was no answer, not that he expected one to come and Davos carefully folded the letter back into his pocket. Steeling himself, he turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open. And there he was, the Lord of Storm’s End.

“Lad,” Davos started from his place by the door but Gendry didn’t stir.

Gendry stared out of his open solar window again, mindlessly watching the waves crash over the jagged rocks below Storm’s End. His leather overshirt was thrown over the back of his chair, leaving him in a light white shirt, the fabric shivering against the wind.

“The Maester brought me another letter from Her Grace.” Davos started. “Queen Daenerys asks after you. Reports have reached King’s Landing from Queen Yara, the Ironborn’s search for Lady Arya-”

“Don’t,” Gendry whispered, tired, his shoulders slumped and Davos couldn’t see his face but he knew his eyes were dragged down by deep purple bags. “Don’t say it. I can’t bear to hear it, not from you.”

Davos shut the door and made his way to the chair in front of Gendry’s desk. His shoulders felt heavy. Davos had arrived months after Gendry, but the castle looked just as barren as it had been without a Lord. There was no warmth, not in the castle and not in its Lord. Gendry was kind to the common folk and he was tolerant of the highborns, but there was a distance in his voice, in his touch, in his eyes.

“It’s been three years, she’s not coming back.” Davos’ chest felt like it was freezing over, he had tried to keep Gendry’s hope alive all those months but he couldn’t stand to look at his son waste away. He had grown used to watching Gendry smile in Winterfell, watch him feel happiness and glow with love. Now all there was in Gendry was sadness and loneliness.

“She’s coming back. I know she is.” His voice cracked and Davos reached from his seat to rest his hand on Gendry’s shoulder. The weight seemed to topple Gendry. The man turned and he looked like the lost boy Davos met in Dragonstone all those years ago. Gendry’s face fell and he turned fully away from the sea. “I know she is,” he repeated.

And Davos nodded, defeated by the empty eyes staring back at him. There was nothing behind them. No stubborn fire, no horns, no reflection of the forge Gendry barely visited anymore. “Any day now, I’m sure.”

Gendry looked relieved but his eyes remained lifeless, a pale blue that made Davos’ heart clench in his chest. They were nothing like the deep blue he met in Dragonstone, they were nothing like the ones he saw shining with love and acceptance when he was around Arya Stark. They were not the eyes of the Gendry he knew, the one he loved like a son.

Not for the first time, Davos wondered if the fire in Gendry’s eyes was the result of loving Arya Stark. He wondered if losing the woman he loved would leave Gendry an empty, cracked iron shell.

Is this what the old King Robert Baratheon was like in the long and dreadful days after Lyanna Stark was gone?

“Any day now.” Gendry softly murmured, blank eyes staring into the sea. “In the months between the Long Night and Daenerys marching on King’s Landing,” Gendry walked to his chair and collapsed in its leather embrace. “I got to hold her, I saw all the beauty she hid under her wolf’s skin. I didn’t fall in love with Lady Stark, I fell in love with my Arry. The wild girl with claws and a tongue as sharp as her needle.” a soft smile came over his face.

“Tell me more about her.” Davos urged.

“We met as two starving children on the road,” his eyes grew distant. “Before long, she was all I had. She trusted me, she was the first one who ever did. I was a poor bastard from Flea Bottom with nothing but my bull helmet and anger and she trusted me. A highborn lady.” a breathy laugh left his lips and his eyes watered. “Not that she ever acted like one.”

“Keep going.”

He was quiet for a minute, fingers tapping against the desk before he slipped them back to the leather of his chairs. His head tipped to the side, like he was trying to find memories he had buried long ago.

“Arya,” he swallowed. “Arya was a scrawny little pain in my side, always pushing me about, telling me what to do and when. She would say jump and I would ask how high. And I never minded because she was my family. But how could she be? She was a highborn, she was going back to her brother, a King. How was I supposed to be her family?”

“But you were.” Davos tried to placate him.

Gendry’s eyes snapped to his, searching for something. When his face fell and his eyes dropped back into his lap, Davos knew he hadn’t found whatever he was looking for. “I was and it was all I ever wanted to be.”

“And when you were reunited before the battle?”

“When I saw her again, she was cold and hard and there was a darkness in her. It scared me at first, because what could have happened to her when I was gone?” Gendry brushed an invisible wound on his forehead before dropping to grip his stomach. “But I broke through her walls, I loved her before I thought I was allowed to, before I knew what it was.” his breath caught. “And I will love her until the end of my days.”

Davos sat and watched the Lord of Storm’s End break. His eyes cracked like ice, tears rolling down his scruffed face. His hands gripped the wooden arms of his chair and great heaving sobs crawled out of his throat. Davos set the parchment from the Queen carefully on the desk, Gendry looked at the paper as Davos rose from his seat.

Gendry’s fingers carefully opened the letter and his eyes read over the words with bleak sadness shining through. “You have to remember who she was without letting yourself fall into nothing without her.”

* * *

Somewhere in the west of Westeros, under miles of deep blue ocean, a broken down ship sat on the ocean floor. It’s mast was cracked and dropped to sink below the rocks and sand. In the captain's cabin a sharp, small sword stuck through a series of watered maps. A body floated in the cabin. She was small, her dark hair bleeding around her stone face. In her hand sat a small bull pendant, fingers wrapped around it like a lifeline.

There would be no funeral, no ancient crypts to cradle the girl. All there was left was a rusting Needle embedded deep into the wood of her desk and a face no one would recognize anymore. She wasn’t a daughter or a sister or a friend here, all she had become was nothing. The last thoughts she had had been of her family.

Her honourable father, her brave mother and eldest brother. Of a sweet sister with autumn leaves for hair, of two younger brothers who were lost when they lost their home. Of a tall man with her grey eyes who she called brother.

Of a love with blue eyes and steel behind his words.

**Author's Note:**

> How do you feel?  
Short but bitter. Just like me.


End file.
